Saving Seafood

Submissions open for WSI’s second “Women in Seafood” video contest

March 22, 2019 — Women at work in the seafood industry is the focus of an international video competition that’s now open for entries. The scope includes all segments of the industry – fishing on boats, fish farming, processing, selling, managing, research, monitoring, teaching, and any related services.

It’s the second round for the contest that was launched last year by the Paris-based group Women in the Seafood Industry.

“Women are very numerous in the industry, but not very visible,” said Marie Christine Monfort, WSI president, and co-founder.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alabama Senator Shelby Seeks Solutions For Gulf Fisheries To Flourish

February 8, 2016 — At 6’3” Richard Craig Shelby, the senior Senator from Alabama, casts a long shadow on the Halls of Congress, welding influence felt in banking, energy, commerce, defense, science and fisheries, especially Gulf of Mexico fisheries.

“I like fresh seafood,” said the Senator relaxing back in his leather chair at the head of his Capitol Hill office conference table. “I especially like Gulf Scamp (a highly prized game and commercial fish in the grouper family). I could live on scamp, my wife and I never throw a piece of that away.”

The Alabama Senator has a single purpose when it comes to the Gulf of Mexico. “I want to make sure the Gulf remains healthy, and that the fish are abundant as they can be, and that all three fishing sectors; commercial, charter-for-hire and recreational, as well as all Americans, continue to benefit from them,” he said.

Born in Birmingham on the sixth of May in 1932, Shelby received a law degree from the Birmingham School of Law. First elected to the Senate in 1986 after winning a tight race as a Democrat, he was among a group of conservative Democrats. In 1994, midway through his second term, he switched allegiance to the Republican Party.

Currently he chairs the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and the Senate Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee, and sits on the Committee on Rules and Administration.

Constant Gulf Seafood Supporter

During his term on Capitol Hill, Shelby has been a constant supporter of Alabama and Gulf Seafood, as well as the thousands of people working hard to deliver it to the American people everyday.

“I like to fish, it’s is a great sport,” he told Gulf Seafood News in an exclusive interview. “I enjoy the outdoors.”

In his soft Southern drawl, the Senator said he wants the Gulf seafood industry to flourish because everyone benefits from seafood. “It’s nutritious and provides jobs for thousands upon thousands along the Gulf coast, as well as across the country,” he said. “Be it commercial, charter-for-hire or recreational, I am interested in maintaining abundant, healthy seafood in the Gulf of Mexico that is available to all.”

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood Institute

 

 

Nestle admits Thai seafood suppliers abuse workers, promises to pursue solutions aggressively

November 23, 2015 — WASHINGTON (AP) — Impoverished migrant workers in Thailand are sold or lured by false promises and forced to catch and process fish that ends up in global food giant Nestle SA’s supply chains.

The unusual disclosure comes from Geneva-based Nestle SA itself, which in an act of self-policing announced the conclusions of its yearlong internal investigation on Monday. The study found virtually all U.S. and European companies buying seafood from Thailand are exposed to the same risks of abuse in their supply chains.

Nestle SA, among the biggest food companies in the world, launched the investigation in December 2014, after reports from news outlets and nongovernmental organizations tied brutal and largely unregulated working conditions to their shrimp, prawns and Purina brand pet foods. Its findings echo those of The Associated Press in reports this year on slavery in the seafood industry that have resulted in the rescue of more than 2,000 fishermen.

The laborers come from Thailand’s much poorer neighbors Myanmar and Cambodia. Brokers illegally charge them fees to get jobs, trapping them into working on fishing vessels and at ports, mills and seafood farms in Thailand to pay back more money than they can ever earn.

“Sometimes, the net is too heavy and workers get pulled into the water and just disappear. When someone dies, he gets thrown into the water,” one Burmese worker told the nonprofit organization Verite commissioned by Nestle.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News 

New nationwide coalition seeking to unify commercial fishing interests

November 16, 2015 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group with strong New Bedford ties is creating a national coalition of commercial fishing interests to boost outreach and communication for the industry, which supporters claim often can be overmatched by unified environmental groups that promote competing interests.

“America’s fishing communities and seafood industry have been maligned by special interest groups working in collusion, who have slandered hard-working Americans with outrageous claims and misrepresentations,” Bob Vanasse, a New Bedford native and executive director of Saving Seafood, said in a Monday news release. “We’re aiming to bring the entire supply chain of fishermen, shoreside businesses, processors, markets and restaurants together to join this effort to move the national conversation in a positive direction.”

The Saving Seafood release said the nonprofit, formed in 2009, is conducting a membership drive for its new National Coalition of Fishing Communities (NCFC). Vanasse said the coalition, so far, has about 60 members across the country, including New Bedford’s Harbor Development Commission.

The NCFC will formally launch in Washington in January, during the next U.S. Conference of Mayors event. Vanasse said New Bedford Mayor Mitchell will be chairman of the coalition’s mayors’ group, reaching out to municipal leaders in Seattle, Honolulu, Atlantic City and other cities with strong commercial fishing ties. Coalition members already include commercial fishing associations from Hawaii, Oregon, North Carolina, New Jersey and more.

“I believe there needs to be a stronger voice for fishing communities in the halls of Congress,” Mitchell said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard -Times